Exactly, Alonso could quite easily have won NONE if certain engines had not failed.

OH NO...

2006? If Schumacher's engine hadn't failed in Suzuka Alonso still would have won the title by a point.

It wasn't just Schumacher's engine failure in Suzuka - next race in Brazil, Schumacher suffered from a fuel pump issue in Q3, after posting the fastest time (by a mile) in Q2. He would have certainly started that race from pole, and not had Alonso's team-mate slash his tyre which sent him to the back of the field.

If's and then's can work in so many ways...

And now you're changing two results.

If Renault had attached Alonso's 4 wheels on properly in Hungary and if Alonso didn't have an engine failure of his own in Monza the title would have been over before Brazil. It all balances out.

I am so tired of this garbage. He talks about how Alonso had the title in '10 if not for a Ferrari mess up and how lucky Vettel was. He skips the part where Vettel was leading the first race when the car broke down and Alonso got the free win, and race two when the car had problems and he went from leading to 4th or in Korea when the car broke down and he went from 1st to last.

Lots of titles are close and you could write how they all could have gone the other way... This Benson guy LOVES Alonso and retweets every single Alonso tweet.... He is on a mission to down play Vettel and let the world know Alonso is the true King

Scanning down the article he has spoken of the championship battles of 12 differant drivers and where Vettel is mentioned includes the lines "Did those events reflect on the qualities of Alonso or Vettel as drivers in any way? Of course not. None of this is to diminish a remarkable achievement by Vettel, or to downplay the talent of a man who will clearly be a central figure in F1 for the next decade."

Yet you've somehow read it as an article focused on crushing Vettel.

Benson's assertion that the numbers don't tell the whole story and results should be put into context is perfectly correct, and he is correct that championships have turned on the smallest of margins but that the details are forgotten years down the line when simply reading down the championship table. As such the numbers alone do not tell the whole story of a given f1 season or the history of f1 as a whole.

If he'd written an article saying that since Button thrashed Vettel in the 2009 championship, Button should clearly be considered a much better driver, you would certainly argue against this since as we all know this is plainly not true and the Brawn car avantage should be taken into consideration.

You may not like what he said but he has made perfectly well reasoned points.

OK, the last pair of results were assisted by Massa, but Alonso pushed like hell in the last races of the season. Ferrari's problem, as it has been all season, was a chronic lack of single lap pace that simply left Alonso with too much to do on Sundays. Qualifying was incredibly important this season - 16 of the 20 races were won from the front row. In dry conditions, Alonso qualified in the top 3 twice - in Spain and Canada.

if you put it like that it seems he had an incredible run but statistics lie pretty damn good.singapore: Hamilton + Maldonado problems meant Alonso inherited 2 places, nothing specialjapan: all of his doingkorea: Hamilton hit trouble so he got a place + Massa faster, who stayed behind the last 10 lapsIndia: yeah, he had a pretty good start disposing of the two Maccas on the way (and I suspect he would have passed them anyway as McLaren was no match for Ferrrari ) but he needed Webbo to hit trouble to make 2ndAbu Dhabi: is perhaps the race that totally proves my point - on a day where your main opponent starts from pitlane and the other strong opponent abandons you'd think he'll win it - well, no ! he needed once again drivers ahead to hit trouble to make his way otherwise I suspect Vettel would have gotten himUSA: well, he started 7th to begin with and apart from the start (expected) he only finished 3rd cause Webbo hit trouble.Brazil: this is what puzzled me a lot - they told you via radio your opponent was hit, spun and is last. Massa gifted you 3rd.I was really expecting some sort of ego-burst or something, a lot closer to the McLarens. he struggled the whole race and if it hadn't been for Nico he wouldn't have gotten to the much needed podium. can you imagine Vettel out and the 1st lap and Alonso not champ cause he couldn't get 3rd past a Foce India ?! cause that was a very plausible scenario!

I hate doing race by race analysis but that's why I think he wasn't in his right frame of mind after Monza. Like I said, it worked beautifully in 2006 but not this year.

_________________Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the powerful as useful

OK, the last pair of results were assisted by Massa, but Alonso pushed like hell in the last races of the season. Ferrari's problem, as it has been all season, was a chronic lack of single lap pace that simply left Alonso with too much to do on Sundays. Qualifying was incredibly important this season - 16 of the 20 races were won from the front row. In dry conditions, Alonso qualified in the top 3 twice - in Spain and Canada.

if you put it like that it seems he had an incredible run but statistics lie pretty damn good.singapore: Hamilton + Maldonado problems meant Alonso inherited 2 places, nothing specialjapan: all of his doingkorea: Hamilton hit trouble so he got a place + Massa faster, who stayed behind the last 10 lapsIndia: yeah, he had a pretty good start disposing of the two Maccas on the way (and I suspect he would have passed them anyway as McLaren was no match for Ferrrari ) but he needed Webbo to hit trouble to make 2ndAbu Dhabi: is perhaps the race that totally proves my point - on a day where your main opponent starts from pitlane and the other strong opponent abandons you'd think he'll win it - well, no ! he needed once again drivers ahead to hit trouble to make his way otherwise I suspect Vettel would have gotten himUSA: well, he started 7th to begin with and apart from the start (expected) he only finished 3rd cause Webbo hit trouble.Brazil: this is what puzzled me a lot - they told you via radio your opponent was hit, spun and is last. Massa gifted you 3rd.I was really expecting some sort of ego-burst or something, a lot closer to the McLarens. he struggled the whole race and if it hadn't been for Nico he wouldn't have gotten to the much needed podium. can you imagine Vettel out and the 1st lap and Alonso not champ cause he couldn't get 3rd past a Foce India ?! cause that was a very plausible scenario!

I hate doing race by race analysis but that's why I think he wasn't in his right frame of mind after Monza. Like I said, it worked beautifully in 2006 but not this year.

With the exception of the USA and Brazil and maybe Korea. I don't see how Alonso could have done any better. He can't make the car drive faster than it can. Maybe that was the maximum that the Ferrari could have gotten out of the race.

I agree, but his Schumacher hatred/Alonso love is evident. All the drivers he lists could have won more WDC's. Only to point out that Schumacher could have less. He forgets that even Schumacher could have won more, say in '98, '99 or even '06. He points the '03 tyre shambles instead, when in fact Schumacher could have been anything from a 5xWDC to a 10xWDC. He chose to mention the worst.

While on Alonso he goes blind suddenly. In '10 the team indeed made a mistake, but Alonso couldn't pass a slower car for the whole race. No mention of that. Then for this year he mentions Spa and says about all the points Alonso lost, forgetting that Vettel had DNF's as well.

No, he makes a point, but his way is sh*te once again

Exactly, Alonso could quite easily have won NONE if certain engines had not failed.

OH NO...

A mechanical failure is part of the car's package: in the same way you claim Vettel lost x points because of an engine fail, you could claim that Alonso lost y points because of a wind tunnel fail, or because the car was not fast enough (hence a car fail). An accident is a different situation: you may judge if it is the driver's fault, in which case you should not "correct" the points, or if it was sheer bad luck, in which case I understand people allowing for that particular "what if". I think that Spa obviously falls into that second category (and for the record, since it does not seem to be part of this discussion, I don't agree with those who are eager to squarely blame Alonso for what happened in Suzuka).

As for Abu Dhabi 2010, those claiming that Alonso could not pass a slower car should remember that Hamilton could not pass the same car either. Are you going to conclude that Hamilton was too conservative in his approach to racing too?

No , sorry we cant but I like the way you argue .

There is no guarantee that Alonso woould have won in similar cars if the Wind tunnel had worked . Its speculatable but not a given.

There is however 99% chance that vettel would have won in Valencia given the pace he was lapping. Only a mech DNF could have denied him the win and it duly did.

Besides a DNF from a win loses you 25 points while a slower car but able to finish on podium only loses you about 10 points on average.

And there is no guarantee that Vettel would have won had his car been reliable but not that fast. And that is the point I am making: if you correct for the car's deficiencies, you should correct for all of them - ie, reliability and speed.

And an unreliable car does not DNF in all races, while a slower car is always slow. So what is worse, to lose 25 points now and then, or to not be able to score more than 10 consistently?

So - to be taken seriously , I have to buy the bullshit this guy writes. Sorry much happier NOT to be taken seriously

Nope I never said that. In fact I don't think I've mentioned that article once in any of my posts.

F1yer wrote:

Well he did not look much better - waving his hands on the slow down lap.

And I m not saying he should deliberately DNF , just that he should have tried more aggressively and not be afraid to crash out. You would be singing his praises if he salvaged that - wouldnt you?

The last thing he could afford was a retirement. He had 3 title rivals in the race. Seb could have broken down on the last lap for all he knew (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emNuqd4L2NA - can't ever rule it out!).He tried a move or two on Petrov and went off the road, a banzai move wasn't worth the risk of crashing out.

Fair enough - but if Vettel had remained where he was forced to be in Abu Dhabi and Brazil waiting for an Alonso DNF - he wouldnt be a champ this year.

Its your attitude towards risk. Alonso , Button and Kimi fall into the risk averse category and I feel that to be truly great - you need to take more than your share. Lewis and Vettel have proved that.

I'm sorry, but you're way off the mark. If you think that trying to overtake someone with the knowledge in your head that your attempts could very well end up in a crash (going for broke) is a sensible thing to do, then you (indirectly) just don't deserve a seat in Formula One. Irrespective of how fast you are, anyone that drives, and would willingly jeopardise the safety of not only themselves but another driver just for a position is an utter disgrace to the sport.

_________________This is where the party's at.Webber.Button.Ricciardo.Grosjean.Hulkenberg.Lowndes.Power.Marquez.

Not me. Given that I'm not a fan of Vettel, Alonso or Schumacher, I couldn't care less. I just barge my way into a thread, add my 2 cents on something completely unrelated, and then check over the thread anally, with high hopes that someone will quote my post, string it to bits and rip it through me, only for that person to be bombarded with opinions from many others, stating that they are wrong.

_________________This is where the party's at.Webber.Button.Ricciardo.Grosjean.Hulkenberg.Lowndes.Power.Marquez.

Exactly, Alonso could quite easily have won NONE if certain engines had not failed.

OH NO...

2006? If Schumacher's engine hadn't failed in Suzuka Alonso still would have won the title by a point.

It wasn't just Schumacher's engine failure in Suzuka - next race in Brazil, Schumacher suffered from a fuel pump issue in Q3, after posting the fastest time (by a mile) in Q2. He would have certainly started that race from pole, and not had Alonso's team-mate slash his tyre which sent him to the back of the field.

If's and then's can work in so many ways...

And now you're changing two results.

If Renault had attached Alonso's 4 wheels on properly in Hungary and if Alonso didn't have an engine failure of his own in Monza the title would have been over before Brazil. It all balances out.

But then Schumacher had the failures in Malaysia and Japan and Brazil.

It doesn't really matter in the sense that none of the two cars of Schumi and Alonso were competitive all season. Apart from Imola and China they didn't even see each other all year. That's what you get having a tyre war. A rather crap championship fight. Yes high level, but not fun.